Women who embrace their footy prove they can tackle anything

Page Tools

"She's got nice legs," NRL director Katie Page said as Telstra
executive Holly Kramer stood on the stage at the Town Hall to
present an award on Dally M night.

There was a horrified silence at her table. Men reached for
their beers, others checked their watches. Finally, ARL chief
executive Geoff Carr told Page, part-owner of giant retail chain
Harvey Norman, "You can say that. We can't possibly".

The code is still reeling from the events in Coffs Harbour.

When a former international strolled into a representative
training camp this year and said by way of greeting, "Any buns,
boys?", the players headed for the door quicker than they'd ever
scored a try.

It must be cosmic comeuppance to the code when Kramer, the only
woman in the Town Hall to receive a compliment about her
femininity, is married to Malcolm Noad, chief executive of the
Bulldogs, the club accused of demeaning females.

No one even cracks a joke about sex in rugby league.

How different it was at the annual Essendon Women's AFL
grand-final lunch at Crown Casino on Thursday.

During a debate - "that footy has gone soft" - one woman speaker
said: "I want my man to be best on ground and best pants man off
ground."

AFL terminology, such as "hard ball get", was redefined as a
"side effect of Viagra".

Commenting on a move by a space-challenged Melbourne council to
bar anyone hitting a cricket ball for a six, one woman said:
"That's like having sex without an orgasm. Been there, done
that."

Victorian women feel a greater ownership of their game and
therefore speak with more confidence.

Essendon don't even have a team in the grand final, yet there
were 1000 women at the lunch, all paying $100. The emcee was
Justice Linda Dessau, a Federal Court judge.

If women are appalled by violence in football, there was no hint
of it from the speakers. "Every woman here would pay $20 to see you
clean up Jason Akermanis," a debater told former Hawthorn tough man
Dermott Brereton.

Dermie was nicknamed "Botox Man" because of the absence of
wrinkles on his face. "If you were an icy pole, you'd lick yourself
to death," they told him.

If women are appalled by stories of yet another footballer
arrested by police, one woman debater said: "I want my son to be
singing, 'I'm going home in the back of a divvy van' by the time he
is 18 months."

Of course, it was all good fun and not justification for the
Bulldogs' view of the universe that the world outside Belmore is
populated by hypocrites and bearers of double standards. Yet there
is increasing evidence rugby league women are assuming some
ownership of the game and, hopefully, greater confidence to exist
in a male sport.

A premier-league match between the Roosters and Bulldogs this
year was refereed by Jason Robinson and his wife, Jenny, was a
touch judge.

Jenny, a mother and a theatre nurse, also refereed a Jersey
Flegg match last year and had two female touch judges. In a "Here's
to you, Mrs Robinson", NSWRL referees co-ordinator Dennis Spagarino
said: "She deserves to be there." He also said: "If some districts,
such as Balmain, didn't have female referees, rugby league wouldn't
exist."

Spagarino's daughter, Joanne, sent bad boy/water boy John
Hopoate from the field this month when he challenged a touch judge
to a meeting after the match.

NRL media officer, Polly "Kettle" McCardell, who now accompanies
every representative team overseas, said recently: "I don't see any
women hanging around hotel foyers anymore."

Of course, rugby league came in for a trashing at the Essendon
lunch. "It has all the charisma of meat trucks colliding by
numbers," one unfunny woman said.

So did Sydney. "There are no swans in Sydney," one said. "Swan
is only a fancy dish on the menu at mardi gras time."

Another said of an al-Qaeda threat: "Sydney has the Harbour
Bridge and the Opera House but when that video arrived last week,
who were the terrorists going to bomb? Us!"

It seems most of Melbourne will be cheering for the Swans
because the club began life as South Melbourne and was known as
"the Bloods".

They like Barry Hall, even if "he has large tattoos to tell his
left from his right".

But despite the Essendon Women's collective confidence and
ownership, they could not resist a jibe at men.

Every guest was given a copy of a new magazine The
Monthly.

"That's a title which could only have been thought up by a man,"
one said.